viewfromaloft

Books and Bikes

At the Los Angeles Book Festival, book lovers answered this sign's question. Photo by Ly.

By Helen Ly

If downtowners did Sunday right, it was a day of books and bikes under the sun. The 18^th Annual Los Angeles Times Book Festival pulled in bibliophiles from around Southern California, and many were greeted with the sight of cycling enthusiasts taking over the city streets for the sixth CicLAvia.

Later in the day, they got to know each other intimately when they shared crammed cars on the Expo Line.

At the book Festival, attendees got off Nooks and wandered the USC campus filled with musicians, poets, cooks, celebrities, and lectures.

Call for Books

The Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council (DLANC) Education Committee are collecting used books for Midnight Mission's Project Homeless Connect Day.  Last year, DLANC collected 35 boxes of books and they report the  popular selections were dictionaries, bibles, books in Spanish, mysteries, and books covering history, health, sports, and cooking.

You can still drop off  your used books at the DLANC Outreach office, where they will begin sorting donations this Tuesday Dec 4. Books will be given away at Project Homeless Connect Day Thursday, Dec 6.

DLANC
450 S. Main Street (located next to the Regent Theater on Main St north of 5th)
Monday through Thursday
10am  to 1:30pm.
For more information, (or maybe arrange a quick curbside drop off) call 213 488-1901.

Just out of the pen

Book Signing: Los Angeles Noir is from a gang of authors that nabbed a genre, chucked in in the backseat of a moving car, and took to new points around the city . . .only to fall in love with it's victim. Saturday some of the suspects follow another noir tradition and will be seen in broad daylight  near 5th and Main Downtown. Case in Review: On May 12, a week after a good LA Times review, some the 17 who storied the anthology edited by Denise Hamilton, will be at Metropolis Books for a book signing from 4-6 pm . . . J-Town Suspect: As mentioned before, former editor of a Little Tokyo's daily newspaper Rafu Shimpo Naomi Hirahara, penned "Number 19."  . . .Add: Hirahara's current mystery, Snakeskin Shamesin, recently won Best Paperback Original for 2007 from the New York based Edgar Allan Poe Awards that honor American mystery writers.

Los Angles Noir book signing
Metropolis Books
440 S Main St (n/o 5th)
Saturday, May 12
4-6 pm